


Need a Little Time

by flashindie



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: F/M, GGWeek2020, Missing Scene, Violent Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:15:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25702690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashindie/pseuds/flashindie
Summary: “That’s the thing with havin’ kids,” she’d hummed, smoothing her touch at his clean-shaven cheek. “You wait too long to see them, they’ve done a whole lot of growin’ without you. Not always the good type either.”And he’d rolled his eyes then, because he was young enough to think that shit was about him, a jab about not swinging round enough, not going to church with her for anything but the holidays, about the fact that Rhea was nursing Marcus out on the back steps without a ring on her finger, or about the cut on his chin nobody had been able to stop eyeballing since he’d gotten out of his car.But the thing is, he looks at Marcus now and he thinks:An inch, maybe two.That’s how much taller he is.-A missing scene from 3.02. Rio reconnects with his son and his ex, but Beth is never far from mind.
Relationships: Marcus & Rio (Good Girls)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 264





	Need a Little Time

It was something his mother had said to him once – drunk off cheap merlot and good company at the party after his little cousin’s baptism – her long fingers clamped around his chin.

“That’s the thing with havin’ kids,” she’d hummed, smoothing her touch at his clean-shaven cheek. “You wait too long to see them, they’ve done a whole lot of growin’ without you. Not always the good type either.”

And he’d rolled his eyes then, because he was young enough to think that shit was about him, a jab about not swinging round enough, not going to church with her for anything but the holidays, about the fact that Rhea was nursing Marcus out on the back steps without a ring on her finger, or about the cut on his chin nobody had been able to stop eyeballing since he’d gotten out of his car.

But the thing is, he looks at Marcus now and he thinks:

An inch, maybe two.

That’s how much taller he is.

His hair’s longer, one of his grown teeth has cut, his shoulders widened and there’s a set to him now that’s less _kid_ , and a little more like _little man_ , and shit if he don’t know what to do with that.

 _Twelve weeks_ , he reminds himself, his shoulder, chest, gut aching.

That’s it.

What’s twelve weeks?

“We can fly ‘em,” Rio says, leaning back onto Marcus’ bed as his son walks out, settling the plane onto the low-slung bookcase in the corner of his bedroom. “Paint ‘em. I got other models, figured we could make some together.”

“Okay.”

Is his voice different too?

Rio rocks his jaw, watching as Marcus keeps his distance, fiddles with the binding on one of his books before grabbing some made-LEGO model off another shelf, taking a bit of it apart, refixing it to make it taller, leaner. His gaze darts up to Rio, and Rio aims for a smile, somethin’ in his chest tightening when Marcus instantly lowers his eyes back to the thing in his hands.

Outside, a dog barks, a man yells, tellin’ it to quiet down. There’s the sound of a car grumbling down the street, afternoon birds shaking off sleep. Closer, Rhea turns on the stove, lays somethin’ on it a little harder than she needs to, the metallic clang enough to make them both look, make Marcus shuffle, make his little hands curl fast around his LEGO.

“You missed it.”

The words are so quiet, so small, he almost misses those too, and Rio scoots forwards to the edge of the bed, ignoring the pain in his shoulder as he does it, the sound that surges up through his ears at the feelin’ of it, that pop ( _one, two, three_ ). His mouth dries, and nah, he ain’t goin’ back there, not now (will save it for a moment he can take those bullets out of his pocket, run his thumb along them, remember the burn of them inside him while he thinks about melting them down to nothing, making them anew, just for her).

He runs his tongue along his teeth, retraining his focus on Marcus’ neat little hands.

“What’d I miss, pop?”

“My last little league game. We won.”

The words aren’t so small this time, don’t wobble quite so much, and when Marcus’ gaze darts up to him this time, it’s Rio who’s got to look away, that deep river of anger in him that’s laid stagnant starting to rush again.

 _He’ll do it at her house_ , he thinks. Right after he gives her Turner’s badge. Wants her to see it, feel it. What she couldn’t do. What she _did_.

To him.

(To _them_.)

He laces his fingers between his legs, hangs his hands before raising his head, watching Marcus, watching him.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that,” he says, and shit, he means it. “But I’ll make it up to you, ai’ght? You playin’ soccer now, right? I’ll come to those games.”

It’s a nothin’ conciliation prize, and he usually likes it – knowing that he didn’t raise a dumb kid – but man, he’d take one right now, watching Marcus’ gaze dart over his face.

Watches him know exactly how weak this shit is.

Still, he looks down at the figure in his hands, taller now, thinner, somehow _less_ , and says:

“Okay.”

*

It’s the smell that does it – cinnamon sugar and dark coffee and box macaroni cheese – and he blinks and he ain’t in Rhea’s kitchen anymore, he’s in _her’s_ , staring at her kids’ artwork, pinned with cheap, ugly magnets to the fridge, cardboard boxes of cardboard meals scattered over her kitchen island, and then her, smiling, face open and unsure in that way she ain’t ever, and him, cunt struck and fuck dumb, smiling back.

His chest aches.

His fingers twitch. 

“You want one?”

Rio blinks, pulled back to the moment, pulled back to Rhea, gesturing at the percolator, and he nods sharply, watching as she turns away from him, grabbing out another mug. The moment hangs for a minute, and Rio rolls his shoulders back, listening for the other room where he knows Marcus is still quietly playing, twisted up in his own head, and is that shit genetic, he wonders.

That stewin’ and scheming and untangling just long enough to knot something up for good?

He shakes his head.

“Thought we’d decided on basketball,” he says, because why the fuck not, and Rhea reels back to look at him, does that thing with her mouth like she’s sick of his shit, and it’s enough to make him look away from her, out across her kitchen, rock his jaw. He hates her place.

Hates that she’s so particular with how she spends the money he gives her. Won’t spend it on some place bigger, with better security. That she stays in this two bedroom place in the ‘burbs, won’t replace the wallpaper he knows she hates, won’t pull up the carpet, sell her abuela’s cheap ass dining room table, won’t even buy a set of nothin’, instead collecting plates and mugs from friends, family, yard sales; novelty ones from the theme parks she takes their son to and the shows she sees with her own ma.

Almost on cue, Rhea drops a mug to the bench a little harder than necessary, and Rio’s gaze snaps back to her, clocks the hard look on her soft face as she says:

“You know what? You get a say in what he plays and what he does when you gonna stick around for the whole season. How about that, huh?”

It smarts, it does, and Rio sucks in his lips, nods before he can help it, that river of anger in him starting to roar again, and he blinks and he sees Rhea, and he blinks and he sees Elizabeth, waving that gun around like she’s got any clue what to do with it, those words in her mouth again and again and again _I have a family, I have children_ like she didn’t bend over that bathroom sink for him with her dumbass husband outside, like she didn’t tangle him up in her _family_ sheets, like she didn’t want him there, shading in the lines of her picture perfect life.

“I got tied up,” he grits out, and Rhea huffs out a breath, looks away, opens her mouth to say something, then closes it.

Opens it again.

Closes it.

And ain’t that always been them? A door juddering through a storm.

Fuck.

Rio grunts, raising his hand to run over the back of his head, feeling the bristle of his hair and then he’s looking at her’s and it’s too easy, just to say it.

“You cut your hair,” he tells her, and Rhea blinks up at him in surprise, huffs out an unamused laugh, before letting her eyes dart down his body.

“You lost weight.”

And - - huh.

The image of Marcus’ hands, rebuilding that LEGO man flashes in his head, and shit, Rio thinks, he’s lost a lot of things lately.

He trains his ear again, trying to find Marcus in this house – wants to hear the dip of his bed or the sound of him playing (the sound of him making airplane noises, like he used to, like he would when Rio made him things like that), but he doesn’t hear anything except Rhea.

(Except the _pop pop pop_.

Except _her_ , crying in his loft).

“No letter, no email, no call, not even a Facebook message,” Rhea says. “I’m not doing this with you again, you hear me?”

Rio blinks back at her, exhales, nods.

“It won’t happen again.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

Which - - okay. Rio sucks on his teeth, bristling with annoyance, because shit, what does she want him to say then? Wants him to be honest? That it won’t, because he’s gonna handle this? She ain’t ever liked hearing about this part of him, so he doesn’t get why she suddenly wants to _now_ , and he thinks maybe that’s a fight he can have, can _do_ , when there are loud little feet pounding down the hall.

“Mom,” Marcus calls, like somethin’s just occurred to him, and Rio looks back at where he’s suddenly appeared in the doorway. “Are we going to the park today?”

“No, baby, remember? Mrs. Boland has to work. We’ll go tomorrow though.”

There’s a ringing in his ears.

A flatline sound that grows loud, louder, louder still, and his mouth feels dry, his skin tight, and those wounds of his start to burn and he thinks - -

He thinks:

Lungs.

Shoulder.

Spleen.

He thinks _of-fucking-course_.

He thinks - -

“Mrs. Boland, huh?”

Is that his voice? He thinks it’s his voice, sounds like his, even if it’s raspy, low, faraway.

“Yeah, you know her, right?” Rhea says, twisting just enough to pull the percolator up, pour their coffees, and she hears his silence, because she looks up at him, a funny look on her face, and Rio don’t know what look’s on his, but it’s enough to make her pause.

“She said you guys used to talk a little at the - - I mean. Her daughter and Marcus knew each other.”

And it’s just like that he’s back on that park bench, Elizabeth sitting a foot away, one of those pinched, cagey looks on her face she’d get when she thought they were being watched, like anyone looked at her and thought anything except some variation of _mama,_ like that part of her costume ever fuckin’ tore, and he thinks his mom was right about this too.

You wait too long to see someone, who knows what they do while you’re gone.

“You’re gonna need to tell me everythin’,” Rio says, and Rhea ain’t Elizabeth, because she does.


End file.
